Ryan Fox moves to career-high world ranking of 22 with British Open win, in box seat for prized Presidents Cup berth
Wednesday, 22 July 2026
When Ryan Fox mapped out his goals for 2026, a first top-10 or even top-five finish in a major championship was high on the list.
Winning one? A near unthinkable bonus, if everything was to fall his way and he played the weekend rounds of his life. Tick.
Back in April, on the eve of the US Masters, his main target was for late September at Medinah Country Club in Chicago: to become the first Kiwi golfer since Danny Lee in 2015 to play the President’s Cup for the International team against the United States.
“I feel like if I can make that team, then a lot of good things have happened for me to get there,” Fox said then.
The extraordinary scenes at Royal Birkdale near Liverpool on Monday morning - when Fox roared and raised his arms in triumph as a British Open champion - now makes that a near certainty, and opens plenty of other doors.
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On top of the $5.48 million winner’s cheque and possession of the prized Claret Jug until next year’s Open at St Andrews, Fox soared 34 places to a career-high world ranking of 22.
That boosted him to No 2 on the International team rankings behind Si Woo Kim of South Korea, who was among the top-10 also-rans behind Fox at Royal Birkdale. The top-six on those rankings at the end of August are guaranteed starters in the International team, with the other six selected by captain Geoff Ogilvy.
Fox has withdrawn from this weekend’s PGA Tour event, the 3M Open, for time with his family at their base in Jupiter, Florida, before a possible resumption in the Rocket Classic in Detroit starting on Friday week.
His Open win moved Fox from 59th to 21st on the FedEx Cup rankings, putting him in the frame for the top-30 who will contest the Tour Championship for a purse of US$40 million (NZ$68 million) in Atlanta in the final week of August.
Then there’s the red carpet treatment the title of ‘champion golfer of the year’ brings. Fox, 39, can play the British Open until he’s 55, and gains direct entry to the other majors (Masters, US Open and PGA Championship) for the next five years.
He also secured a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour, which he only joined fulltime in 2024 then cemented his status for three years with victory in the Canadian Open in 2025.
Fox said when asked about being a golfing late bloomer: “I was a rookie on the DP World Tour (Europe) at 30. I was a rookie on the PGA Tour at 37 and now a major champion at 39. I'm definitely not following the trend at the moment. But if I can keep getting better a little bit every year, I'll be pretty happy.
“… If you'd have given me my career up til yesterday when I first turned pro, I would have jumped at it. Now I probably would have killed people for it,” he said to laughter at his victory press conference.
Up until now, Fox’s best finish in 28 major tournaments was 16th equal in the 2019 Open at Royal Portrush. In an interview with The Post’s Marc Hinton last October, his expectations for 2026 were cautiously optimistic.
“I’d love to be top-5, top-10 in a major. It’s hard to do. The golf courses are tough, it’s the best players in the world, and it’s also really hard to pick the weeks you’re going to play well. In golf you can turn up, do everything right, and it can go badly.
“Then you can turn up feeling awful and stand on the first tee on Thursday and something clicks and it feels great again. It’s really hard to pick which week it’s going to be, but hopefully next year one of those is a major.”